BUONANNI (or BONANNI), Filippo
Micrographia Curiosa sive Rerum minutissimarum Observationes, quae ope Microscopii recognitÃ¦ & expressÃ¦ curiosorum NaturÃ¦ Exploratorum utilitati proponuntur.. Added engraved title & 40 engraved plates (three are folding). 1 p.l., 106 pp., one blank leaf. Small 4to, cont. English panelled calf (corners renewed, rebacked, some dampstaining in gutter at foot to first ten leaves). Rome: A. de Rubeis, 1703. First separate edition, originally published as the second part of the author's Observationes circa viventia (1691). Our edition - which is actually the original printing of the second part with a new title-page - is very rare with only one copy located by WorldCat. Buonanni (1738-1725), one of the most learned Jesuits of his time, was a pupil of Athanasius Kircher, and succeeded his master as teacher of mathematics at the Collegium Romanum. This work is one of the earliest Italian treatises on microscopy. It contains interesting observations on early microscopes and a precise description of Buonanni's own compound microscopes, which are illustrated on two plates. The rest of the plates show objects seen through the microscope, including a number of illustrations of insects. "The quality of his illustrations of various insects was excellent - particularly those of the fly, louse, mite, flea, and mosquito. Indeed, his drawings of the Culex pipiens (common house mosquito) are the best of the seventeenth century)."-D.S.B., II, p. 591. Very good copy. Duplicate from the British Museum with their duplicate stamp dated 1787. Armorial bookplate of Sir John Ingilby Bart. (1758-1815), M.P. and Fellow of the Royal Society. ? Clay & Court, The History of the Microscope, pp. 84-86. Garrison-Morton 264-(1st ed. of 1691).
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